Better Together: The team approach to implementing virtual office hours

Online learners benefit from a strong social presence in their classes. This social presence enhances their feelings about the class, which, in turn, motivates students towards success. To meet this goal, instructors may provide opportunities for virtual conferences with their students. While there are indeed many advantages to virtual synchronous meetings, there are also challenges. These challenges stem from instructors conducting these sessions in isolation, which results in low attendance or attempting to cover multiple content areas not immediately applicable to all attending students. The team approach—creating one weekly virtual office session with three instructors—mitigated or eliminated these challenges while providing numerous benefits for students and instructors.